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HOW TO PRONOUNCE

cowan

/ˈkaʊən/

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American Pronunciation Guide · 0:39
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What does cowan mean?

noun

  1. A worker in unmortared stone; a stonemason who has not served an apprenticeship.
  2. A person who attempts to pass himself off as a Freemason without having experienced the rituals or going through the degrees.
  3. (slang) A sneak; an inquisitive or prying person.
More meanings (11)

noun

  1. Uninitiated, outside, “profane”.
  2. (obsolete, rare) A fishing-boat.

proper noun

  1. A Scottish surname from Scottish Gaelic; an anglicization of mac Eoghainn (“son of Ewen”)
  2. A surname from Irish; an anglicization of mac Eógain (“son of Owen”)
  3. A Jewish surname from Hebrew; a variant of Cohen.
  4. An outer suburb of Sydney in Hornsby Shire, New South Wales, Australia. Apparently an anglicization of a Yuin-Kuric word meaning “big water”.
  5. A town in western Manitoba, Canada.
  6. A census-designated place in Stanislaus County, California.
  7. An unincorporated community in Monroe Township, Delaware County, Indiana.
  8. An unincorporated community in Buffalo Township, Union County, Pennsylvania.
  9. A city in Franklin County, Tennessee; named after Dr. James Benjamin Cowan, a Civil War-era doctor whose family had lived in the area since the early 1800s.

Definitions regrouped for readability · CC BY-SA 4.0

IPA pronunciation

/ˈkaʊən/

CMU Pronouncing Dictionary

Pronunciation varies by speaker and region. About these dictionary pronunciations.

In the pages of books

See this word in context.

A Montana cowpuncher named "Fiddle Back" Sinclair was her second, and Robert Ellsworth Cowan became the third.
J. Frank (James Frank) DobieGuide to Life and Literature of the Southwest, with a Few ObservationsProject Gutenberg ebook #314
Wood quotes Cowan in mentioning the case of a child of four, who in two days recovered from a teaspoonful of croton oil taken on a full stomach.
George M. (George Milbrey) Gould; Walter L. (Walter Lytle) PyleAnomalies and Curiosities of MedicineProject Gutenberg ebook #747